Ghostbusters

The Good
This game was pretty fun in its day, you can even sing along with the Ghostbusters theme song on the title screen (a nice little word prompter ball :) Basically you drive from house to house ridding the city of ghosts. You have to maneuver the two ghostbuster's energy streams around the ghosts then set off the trap to catch em'. Oh yeah, while you're driving to each location, if a vacuum cleaner is purchased and installed on your car, you can suck ghosts up off the road. I never did beat this game but I think you fight the marshmallow man later. I think its in one of the screenshots.

The Bad
Ahhh, its a game for C-64, why complain about it? It was an all-around pretty fun game for its day.

The Bottom Line
A good game thats worth a play.

The Good
If this is the one I'm thinking of, it was sort of a cult classic back in it's day; one of the well-known designer David Crane's works, it was a short, although addictive, arcade game. There was a PC junior version, though I don't think it worked on the regular PC systems of the times.

The Bad
It's been a long time, but I'll try...It was pretty short, though this was back in the 2600 days, so games were either really short, or unbelievably repetitive.

The Bottom Line
Fun.

The Good
When "Ghostbusters" came out in 1984, it became (and remains) one of my favorite movies. When it was announced that David Crane, the maker of "Pitfall" was making a computer game version, there was an overwhelming need to own this game.

The premise is unique. The bank gives you the funds needed to open your own Ghostbusters franchise. You choose the car, the equipment, and have to patrol the city in order to keep it ghost-free and enough money in your account. As things get closer to a meltdown in New York, players have to attend to multiple hauntings all over the city as well as frequent visits by the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and the looming threat of the Gatekeeper and Keymaster. It retained all of the main elements of what made the movie so popular, right down to the theme song and crossing the streams. Though sparse by today's standards, the graphics were recognizable, and had some fun animations to them.

The Bad
The main thing that remained tedious about gameplay was the car scenes. They were long and offered very little to do, unless you bought the Ghost Catcher for your car. The early versions of this title haven't aged as well, certainly not in comparison to the superior Sega Master System version, which allowed more diversity in driving, a stair climbing scene, more items, and a showdown with Zuul. But the SMS version had the advantage of being a port of a game that was 3-4 years old at that point, hence the improvements.

There's really no ending for the Apple version. A quick door closing scene, and a wordy "You Win" message. Also laying Ghost Bait to stop Stay-Puft seemed rather hit or miss at times as to whether it would work or not.

The Bottom Line
All things aside, this was one of the much-anticipated games for my Apple IIc, and the business-minded approach to the game was definitely novel, with some elements of strategy used to catch the ghosts. Of all the Ghostbuster games available, this is still the most fun of the lot, and I wish some version of it would resurface for the current generation of consoles.

For a time when movie-based games had very little to do with their subject matter, "Ghostbusters" made a genuine and competent attempt to bring the fun and cleverness of the film home.

It may not have gameplay that's fully stood the test of time, but it still provides some enjoyable moments.